


Going Once

by Wolfenstein



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Bachelor Auction, Dubious Morality, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Workplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:05:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfenstein/pseuds/Wolfenstein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Volunteering Deputy Hale for the date auction seemed hilarious at the time. Plus, it was for charity. It's noble, Stiles is pretty sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Once

**Author's Note:**

> The premise of this is a little bit dub-con and embarrassment squick problematic, but nothing actually untoward happens.

Stiles' relationship with Deputy Hale was totally non-destructive.

Absolutely.

Stiles only ever used his dispatch powers in a professional manner with any of the deputies, Hale included, and he did his part to make the Beacon Hills Sheriff's Department a place of welcome for all of its employees.

The continual pranks he played on Hale were an entirely different thing that Stiles wasn't really interested in examining at length, especially given that the two of his friends who knew the extent of the whole thing kept referring to it as 'pigtail-pulling'. Stiles was pretty sure that was Lydia's fault; Scott just encouraged her but Scott also helped Stiles pull off the more complex stunts without more than a queasy vague disapproval face, so he had no leg to stand on when it came to judging Stiles' life choices.

Hale's--Derek's, you achieved first-name privileges with someone once you'd signed them up for every free trial porn rag and homemaking magazine you could find--Derek's responses to Stiles' shots across the bow were varied but had escalated since the early days from an aura of general grumpiness, to threats against Stiles' person once he caught onto the pattern (clearly a good cop), to, on one memorable occasion, chasing after Stiles with a handful of the glitter that had exploded out of his locker and shoving it down the back of his shirt with a look of smug triumph that did unmentionable and embarrassing things to Stiles' equilibrium and made his breath hitch a little.

It was addictive. He was always looking for his next fix. He was always looking to top his best work. Honestly, after like two years, the planning took way more time than the execution because Stiles was no hack and his finesse and Derek's paranoia had moved them way beyond kiddie shit like rigged lockers and saran-wrapping his Camaro doors shut.

Christmas came in November for Stiles when he ended a six-week prank drought with the best discovery ever. It was fucking amazing. He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to top it (but it wouldn't be for lack of trying).

The society that ran the women's shelter was trying something new in seasonal fundraising, and had coordinated with the Sheriff's Department and the Fire Department to hold a little charity gala for Christmas. Some bright spark on the fundraising committee had the idea of running a date auction with volunteer cops and firefighters. The signup sheet was in the breakroom, next to the microwave.

Stiles' every wish came true when Derek's first inkling that something was very wrong didn't come until a week before the auction gala. He even managed to be walking down the hallway to the breakroom when he overheard his dad's--the Sheriff's--voice coming proudly from inside.

"--Just wanted to thank you, I'm going around and thanking everyone individually, for volunteering for this. I think it's pretty brave and selfless to put yourself out there like that."

There was a short silence before Derek's voice said, "Pardon?" and Stiles stopped in the hallway so abruptly that he almost tripped over his own feet. He clung to the scuffed wall just outside the breakroom doorway and listened breathlessly.

"The date auction!" said Stiles' dad. "Remember, it's black tie. Cindy's going to have the details on arrival and start time for you and I think there might be some kind of waiver. Thanks again, Derek." There was a thump, probably Derek being clapped on the back in the fatherly Andy Griffith way Stiles' dad couldn't stop doing to people he liked, and then the sound of approaching footsteps made Stiles straighten up and grin innocently just as his dad appeared in the doorway.

His dad blinked at him standing there and then gave him a wary look, so the innocent grin probably still needed some work, but he didn't say anything, just turned and went toward his office.

No one else emerged from the breakroom and it was silent within, which meant Derek was still sitting in there, and suddenly Stiles was debating the merits of going in to microwave that burrito he'd been looking forward to for an hour. But he had another four hours left to work the switchboard after his lunch break, assuming Sarah wasn't late which she _always was_ , so he took a deep breath, expelled all thoughts from his mind except burritos, and sauntered in.

Derek focussed on him immediately, tracking his progress to the fridge. Stiles kept tabs on him with his peripheral vision as he went from fridge to microwave, and managed to catch the moment Derek's gaze sharpened and got very... considering.

"There's a charity thing next weekend," Derek began.

"I'm my dad's bro-date," Stiles agreed. "Dry chicken in sauce for a good cause."

The ensuing silence was filled by the drone of the microwave and lasted exactly thirteen seconds--Stiles was staring at the timer--before Derek continued. "There was a signup thing on the wall for the date auction last month."

"Uh huh."

"I am in the date auction now."

"Oh?" Stiles said with polite interest. "That was cool of you."

"I didn't sign up for the date auction."

The microwave dinged and Stiles thought about just running for it, but it wasn't like Derek didn't know where he worked in the building. "That's weird. Are you sure you just didn't forget?"

"I didn't _forget_. I had no interest-- _have_ no interest--in being bid on like a piece of meat."

Stiles picked at the hot wrapper on his burrito as he slowly turned to face Derek, who was, yep, glaring at him now. Stiles' legs tensed almost as a reflex. "But it's for a good cause," he said, and then he met Derek's eyes with a smarmy smile. "Very selfless of you."

Derek stood up suddenly and Stiles bolted. But as he was running down the hall to hide somewhere, he couldn't help shouting back, "I'm sure you'll bring in lots of money for the shelter!"

Honestly, Stiles didn't really see how this was any worse than the time Derek had gone out for a 507 call only to find his cruiser decorated with Christmas lights. And a little plastic snowman ornament.

***

Derek avoided Stiles for the rest of the week, the most disconcerting part of which was that Stiles realized that he was being avoided and thus accidentally had a baseline for their interactions established that he hadn't actually paid any attention to before.

His burritos didn't taste as good as they normally did.

***

The gala was very fancy for Beacon Hills; Stiles spotted Lydia across the room in something sparkly that made her look like a Silver Age starlet and shot her a discreet thumbs-up that made her roll her eyes and blush a little at the same time, which was awesome. His tux, dusted off and thankfully still fitting from his high school graduation, felt unnatural on him but he dutifully didn't mess with his tie or cuffs as he sat and ate his chicken. The auction started during the dessert and coffee, five men and two women strolling out onto the stage looking like extras from a James Bond movie, and when Stiles spotted Derek he almost choked on his cake.

Derek was normally a walking hot cop cliché in his uniform with his biceps, sure, but Derek looked _unbelievable_ in a tux. Stiles found himself thinking hard about whether to valiantly bid on a date with Derek, decided that, being barely out of college, his auction date purchasing budget was about twenty bucks, and suspected that he might be outclassed in this room.

It turned out that he was majorly outclassed: when it came to Derek's turn on the block, he was the object of a three-way bidding war between two rich widows and a teacher from the community college, and the only person who netted more money was Vince the Triathlete Firefighter.

Stiles... wasn't that surprised.

***

It was into January before Stiles came across Derek in the breakroom at work again. He sat down cautiously across the table, watching Derek for sudden movements, and pulled out his ham sandwich and string cheese when no violence seemed forthcoming.

"Have your date yet?" he ventured into the silence after a few minutes. His voice was raspy. How had that happened?

Derek swallowed his mouthful of spaghetti. "Yes." He was looking down at his tupperware instead of at Stiles.

When no more was forthcoming, Stiles gave up and let his mouth run. "Was it okay? She didn't try to tell you she paid for extras, did she? If you need to talk about it, I could go get the teddy bear--" He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder.

"We had dinner, Stiles," Derek spoke over him, his voice the definition of exasperated. "It was fine. There were no bad touches."

Stiles snorted into his root beer can, despite himself.

"You're an asshole," Derek continued, finally meeting his gaze.

"Not arguing about that," said Stiles complacently.

"You're going to pay for this one." Derek's voice was very matter-of-fact and sent a shiver up Stiles' spine.

"Totally fucking worth it for the memory of the look on your face," Stiles answered.

***

It turned out Stiles could not top the charity date auction prank; he was at the very least having some kind of prankster writer's block. His lack of ideas and his vague paranoia about Derek's threat of retaliation made him cool it for a couple of months, and even after he forgot about the threats and settled back into routine, he still didn't have any good ideas and kind of just let the whole thing fall by the wayside by summer.

Mostly.

There was one hilarious incident with water balloons that he made Scott help him with.

Overall he suspected he was kind of over it, and told Scott so in September.

"You had a good run," was Scott's answer to his declaration. "Not that I even know what made you start in the first place. It's not like it's an actual prank _war_ , he never gets you back."

"I don't think awesome hilarious jokes are in his wheelhouse," said Stiles with a shrug. "He's more threats and menace and mirror sunglasses used for effect. To each their own."

Scott shook his head.

Stiles thought about it all. "It started when I met him. 'Grumpy dickface' was his default setting. It's like my kryptonite; it reminded me of all the shit with Jackson in high school and I decided to try to get a rise out of him. So I sewed a whoopee cushion into the seat of his cruiser and a legend was born."

"Oh my god," said Scott faintly. "Lydia was so, so right. It's all pigtail-pulling."

"You can go fuck yourself. You can _both_ go fuck yourselves," Stiles said as Scott cracked up, and his cheeks got hot because Lydia was too observant for anyone's good.

But Stiles was over it.

***

He and Derek were sort of talking again, maybe even a little more than average since Stiles had stopped pranking him all the time. It seemed almost proto-friendly, so Stiles felt no compunction about walking into the breakroom one lunch hour in December and nodding at the poster on the bulletin board. "You excited to be one of Beacon Hills' most eligible bachelors for sale again?" It was easy to assume Derek remained an eligible bachelor if for no other reason than his lunches still looked like he lived alone.

Derek actually grinned a little over his soup. "I didn't have to this year. They found all the volunteers they wanted without having to bug me again."

"All the rich widows in town will be so sad," Stiles sighed.

"Can't put a dollar value on this," said Derek, which was so unexpected that it was only natural for Stiles to aspirate some of his bottled water in response.

***

If Stiles had just been more paranoid, the banter and the unusual facial expressions of pleasure from Derek might have been an omen he could have paid attention to. But damn his trusting nature, the trap closed around him.

"I'm surprised you volunteered this year, you know," said his dad over dinner on a windy night in December.

Stiles paused with a spoonful of chickpea and lentil stew halfway to his mouth. "Who what now?"

"Well, you saw all the older women at the gala last year. But I mean, you're twenty-two, you can do what you want, son. And it was nice to get new faces to sign up this year. Vince came back but I don't think Derek would do it again. I'm surprised he did it the first time."

Stiles dropped his spoon back into his bowl. There was a buzzing in his ears.

"Oh, Cindy gave me the waiver to bring home for you, hang on," said his dad, getting up from the table and coming back to slap a piece of paper in front of Stiles that said WAIVER OF LIABILITY at the top and SIGNATURE at the bottom with a lot of words in between and his actual name penned in the blank at the start. A pen dropped onto the table beside it before his dad sat back down.

"Get that done and she can have it back in the morning," he said, scooping up a mouthful of his own stew.

Stiles stared dully down at the waiver form. Then he suppressed a surge of hysterical giggles. He had to hand it to Derek, he hadn't seen this coming at all. He should have, and he was an idiot. But well-played, Derek Hale. Stiles signed his name with a flourish.

***

The beginning of Derek's shift the next day only dovetailed with the last hour of Stiles' own, but Stiles got someone to cover the switchboard for ten minutes and found Derek promptly upon his arrival at the station, where he honoured him with a slow clap.

"Is this gonna be a thing now?" Derek asked over his shoulder, opening his uniform locker a bare inch and waiting a moment before swinging it out the rest of the way, slow and smooth. Stiles tried not to feel a rush of pride at that level of instinctive caution. He was keeping Derek's instincts _primed_ for the field. "Do I get applause every time I walk in a room?"

"Only when you take off your shirt," Stiles said before he could stop himself, watching Derek haul off his t-shirt to reveal the undershirt barely containing his manly glory.

"Duly noted," was all Derek said, reaching for his uniform shirt to shrug on. Stiles mourned the disappearance of his muscles as he buttoned it up quickly. He probably needed to leave the room before Derek changed his pants. Yes. He was leaving.

"Thanks so much for signing me up for the date auction, by the way," he said as he averted his eyes from the scene in front of him. "Very well done. I somehow didn't see it coming. Hats off to you."

"It's for a good cause," said Derek warmly. "I knew you'd be happy to do your part."

***

The tux still fit from last year, which was a small blessing. The anxiety attack waited until the afternoon of the gala to arrive, which was less so.

"Oh god," he wheezed at Scott over the phone, "what if nobody wants to buy me?"

"Stiles, you're very marketable," Scott soothed him. Scott was the best friend anyone ever had. "Just don't forget to comb your hair, dude."

"I need to call Lydia and make a deal with her to bid on me," Stiles gasped. "Oh my god I'm going to owe her a kidney for this favour."

"Don't ask her for any favours! You learned your lesson!" Scott shouted over the line. Then, more reasonably, "Seriously, I don't think it's going to be a problem. You are totally old lady catnip, they'll love you."

Stiles hung up on him and put his head between his knees for ten minutes instead.

***

Derek was his dad's bro-date in Stiles' absence, apparently. His tux also still fit. It fit scandalously. Stiles hated him. He hated how Derek kept staring at him while he stood on stage at the gala like a beauty pageant contestant waiting for his turn. Stiles got the picture, okay, revenge was sweet and he looked like a dork standing between goddamn Vince the Triathlete Firefighter and Deputy Rhonda Watson, who'd once broken a guy's arm in two places while responding to a noise complaint call because he'd asked if she was the stripper. He had called Lydia anyway, even though he knew better, and she'd agreed to make sure he wasn't embarrassed tonight without setting any terms for her help, which was a terrible sign but he was desperate. She was wearing black tonight and looked stunning, this was going to cost him both kidneys.

Rhonda's winning bidder scared off two other people and appeared to be the lady who owned the yoga studio; she winked at Rhonda when she came to escort her off the stage and Rhonda grinned back, which Stiles found very interesting for five seconds until he was being summoned to the front of the stage by the president of the society for the women's shelter, and the lights were kind of bright and Stiles blacked out for a second from nerves. When he came back to himself, the auctioneer was talking and he realized he was being bid on. Stiles squinted into the crowd as Lydia raised her hand and the auctioneer boomed out, "One hundred!" Stiles sighed through his nose and tried to smile like he was enjoying this, and the auctioneer called, "One hundred fifty! Do we have two hundred? Two hundred!"

Stiles blinked and looked back into the crowd. Lydia was bidding against a frankly hot 30-year-old woman and some lady who sat on the board at the country club.

Huh.

While he stood there with his smile frozen on, Lydia dropped out of the bidding (thank god, Stiles wasn't sure he wanted to owe her that favour) and after another few volleys the country club lady, who looked seventy and like she just wanted some nice conversation, which was heartening, edged out the cougar for what Stiles thought a startling sum of money to pay for his company. So this was what it felt like to be trade goods, he mused as he stepped off the stage and offered the country club lady his arm. She took it with a very sweet smile and they sauntered back to her table, where Stiles fully intended to score some cake from somewhere. The chicken had been dry again.

***

Stiles, now booked for a dinner at the club before New Year's, found himself waiting in the lobby of the hotel while gala guests trickled out of the ballroom and out into the night; he'd come with his dad and his dad was hobnobbing and this was basically Stiles' whole life to date, so he could wait patiently. He was leaning against the back of a couch with his hands stuffed in his pockets to ruin the line of his tux when Derek wandered out, undoing his cufflinks like he thought he was Daniel Craig.

"Do you feel better now?" Stiles asked when Derek stopped in front of him.

"Oh, yes."

"That's good. I'm just glad I got a respectable price."

"I still went for more," Derek said with a lazy shrug.

"You couldn't bid on me? Drive the price up? It's for a good cause, Derek," Stiles needled.

"I could never do that, Stiles. I respect you as a person," said Derek primly.

"I thought about bidding on you last year but I only had twenty bucks," Stiles admitted.

"No way was I going to risk having to pay three hundred dollars to have to go to dinner with you," said Derek.

Stiles crossed his arms. "Your loss. It would have been worth every penny." This was edging into dangerous territory now. Stiles' palms itched a little. Also, Derek's upper limit would have been three hundred bucks? Stiles was touched.

Derek raised an eyebrow, and then looked him over in a way that made Stiles cross his arms a little tighter. Then he reached back behind him, and oh yes, he was definitely pulling out his wallet. "Tell you what," he said, looking inside it. "What will ten bucks get me?"

Stiles stood upright and leaned over to peer in Derek's wallet. "That's a twenty in there."

"I was going to ask if you had change."

Stiles cracked up. "And you call _me_ an asshole," he sighed, rubbing his hand down over his face.

"Fine," said Derek, "I'll go twenty if you give me a tax receipt."

"That'll get you coffee," said Stiles, because fuck if he was going to lose this game.

"Just coffee?" Derek's eyebrow went up again. They were in each other's personal space. It was frankly amazing to Stiles that this was even happening right now.

Stiles licked his lips. "Maybe I'll bring the teddy bear. It is for charity, after all."

"Sold."

Stiles suspected he'd just lost the one-sided prank war. But he'd won the... something. There was a win here, it had five o'clock shadow and an intense gaze that went right through him, and he was taking it.


End file.
